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Well, apparently attachments show up only in certain views of the forum. If you don't see it, go to the main category "Observing Tonight".
Carbon stars are beautiful and interesting to find. Several years ago I compiled the attached list. Happy hunting!
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Thanks for the explanation, Dean! This meteor was moving toward the west at 22:01, so it would be on the "back side" of the earth's motion.
(At least I didn't think it was a UFO…
)Tonight I set up the 80mm refractor on an alt-az mount just to poke around the sky since it's been a while. Turned on the red dot finder, lined up M33, and there it was in the eyepiece… immediately joined by a slow meteor tumbling by, leaving a pig-tail of sparkling debris. I've seen other meteors through the eyepiece before but they were all pretty fast. This one took about 0.25sec to cross the 2-degree FOV. The brightness seemed about double that of the bright stars in Triangulum — not very bright, but very pretty.
I listened for any sounds of bottle rockets that some neighbors might have launched, but everything was quiet. Is this type of meteor even possible?
It must have been "new equipment day" — I received a new Stellarvue SVR80ED refractor this morning and was surprised to have clear skies here in Northfield at sunset (how often does a new scope arrive with clear skies?). Got polar aligned and looked at the Pleiades for 2 minutes, then Mars for 2 minutes, and then the fog rolled in; I could barely see across the street, but the resulting frost looks nice.
Glad to hear you had at least a few hours of good conditions at Eagle Bluff.
The Celestron 15×70 binoculars arrived on Saturday, 4 days early — yay for the US Postal Service and their Saturday delivery! There were brief openings in the clouds that night so I checked out the Pleiades which were absolutely beautiful in such a large, bright viewfinder (compared to my old 8×21 binos). The vertical alignment was off by quite a bit; but yay again, for the Internet this time — some detailed instructions helped to fix the problem. There's no way I would have found the adjustment set screws on my own, since they're underneath the glued-down rubberized weatherproofing.
Next thing will be a good tripod. My big old photo tripod acts like a torsion spring with these large binoculars — left right left right….
[quote author=Luka link=topic=275.msg3565#msg3565 date=1259509643]Amazon has Celestron SkyMaster 15×70's for $50.[/quote]
Thanks for the tip — I placed my order and got free shipping, even. Heck of a deal.[quote author=Dean Johnson link=topic=233.msg3561#msg3561 date=1259108697]
Hey Roger, if you ever want to check my journal out to see how I record my observations, you are very welcome to do so.[/quote]
Thanks Dean — I'll be sure to take a look at your journal at the next star party. It sounds like you have some wonderful memories in there!John — nice shots! I love the detail of the triangulum region, and of course the dust lanes of NGC 891.
Dean — thanks for the nice report. Your detailed and recorded observations are a pleasure to read (and something I need to learn).
I got out for a while on Friday as well but the humidity was really high. Lenses would fog over every minute or two, even after using a hot-air dryer to warm them up. You could see thin fog under streetlights too, so I should have known better than to try imaging M33. After 30 minutes of exposures (and dryer operation), the result was a disappointing orange skyglow with a slightly brighter patch at the center of M33.
Following the M33 photo fiasco, star clusters would be about the only thing worth finding in the fog. Saw M objects 35 36 37 38 44 which looked very nice even through the haze. Somehow managed to also see M1 M78 M77 M81-82 and of course M42-43. After packing up and getting ready for bed, I grabbed the finder scope and from the living room floor stumbled upon M41; it was fun to "find" something new without specifically looking for it, especially while wearing pajamas and staying warm.
Since wunderground.com says it will be rainy & cloudy all night, and since Eagle Bluff is a 100-mile drive for me, I'll wait until a better forecast on the next dark sky night. (It would be hard to top the last one.)
Hey gang,
My first star party was an absolute blast! Great fun and interesting conversations. I've had a scope for only a couple weeks and finally got to see M42 which almost made me fall over. Big thanks to Dean for sticking around so late, showing us a huge number of wonderful objects, and sharing his enthusiasm. I'll look forward to the next new moon.
Attached is a photo of John Preston with his icy LX200, checking out M42.
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